IDV's [redacted] Winterval Panto! (Part 2)

Continued from... IDV's Wonderful Winterval Panto! (Part 1)

No.  I'm not doing anymore narrating.

You'll have to get someone else to do it.

But, Very Mistress...

No!  There was more to do than you led me to believe,

and having to do it all in italics as well is too much!

Well, who else can I get on such short notice?

Who hasn't had a part yet?  Ms Nations?  Rimpy?  Melanie?

I bet Upton would be very good? 

Americans?!  Has that Jameson's gone to your head already?

The Great British public won't have bloody Americans

narrating a panto!  No. They can be the Audience.

You snob!  Well, what about Mago, then?  He's just had

his eyes done so reading the script will be a good test.

And Dobbin's not really in this part, so he's free.

Mago...?  Hmmm... Yes.  Mago!

High above the land in a castle floating amongst the clouds, lived a giant.

In diesem Moment in the castle's great hall, the giant was enjoying a breakfast of Ferrero Rocher freshly laid by his golden goose foil-covered droid while being half-heartedly seranaded by his golden robot harp.  The castle's Very Mistress, Fetchsleep, was ensconced in her fainting web, trying - und failing - to get a bit of shut-eye...

 

 "Ah, isn't Jack beautiful?  I just want to eat him all up!  When do you think he'll get here?"

 "Sigh... I really couldn't say - I'm not the one sat in front of the crystal ball!  And when I said no more narrating, I didn't mean for you to cast me in the story instead.  I need my beauty sleep to be ready for legions of punters once I don the Infomaniac Mistletoe Belt Buckle.  So, has he discovered the Cobaeanstalk?"

 "No, not yet.  I've been watching him for hours and haven't even caught a glimpse of his maypole yet!"

 "I'm not surprised - It is December, after all.  What's he doing now, then?  Like I care..."

 "It looks like he's lolling about in bed.  Or riding some sort of sea monster?  It's difficult to tell as the picture in the 'ball isn't very clear."

 "Well, wake me when something interesting happens."

 "Righto.  Golden Harp?  This music is a bit lacklustre - can you play something else, please?  And nothing Christmassy."

 "Oh, 'play something else' he says!  If only it was that easy.  Where are my muses, hmm?  Where are all the big, dumb, muscular lunks to stimulate my creativity?  Oh, that's right - you ate them!  If you want me to play with myself and pluck my own strings, then I'll need the stimulus to do so.  'Play something else' indeed.  Easy for you to say having swallowed all my men.  I don't know why I bother?!  Golden Tinfoil Goose droid agrees with me, don't you?"

 "Beep boop."

In the Dame's hovel, Jack had just woken up, stretched und made his way to the kitchenette to see if there was any of that ekelhafter Schlammjoghurt left for breakfast, when something out of the window caught his eye...

 

 "Crikey!  Mum!  Mum!!"

 "What?  What is it?  It had better be later than it feels."

 "Look, mother!  In the garden next to my Big Pink Bush™!  The magic co-beans grew into a gigantic beanstalk!"

 "What the fu-?"

 "And there's a golden shower!!!"

 "I'm really not into that, but I'll be right there."

In record time, the Dame had donned her budget-sapping wig und strapped herself into one of her least complicated frocks und joined Jack outside where, true to his words, stood a giant beanstalk.  Every so often something gold fluttered down from the sky in the beanstalk's vicinity und, in a serendipitous chance found only in unrealistic popular* entertainment, one such object landed in the Dame's outstretched hand.

 

* Not that this particular piece of entertainment - if one could

even call it that - could ever be classified as 'popular'...

Oh, and just to warn you, we've released the Audience into

the story now.  You'll recognise them by their all-in-caps shouting

because they are, of course, frightful rabble.

OH, NO WE'RE NOT!

OH, YES WE ARE!

No!  Not here.  In the story.  In the story!  Sigh...

 "We're rich, mother!"

"OH, NO YOU'RE NOT!"

 "Who said that?!  Are there any Americans here?!  Of course we're rich!"

"OH, NO YOU'RE NOT!"

 "Oh, yes we are!"

 "Oh, no we're bloody not!!  The Audience are right.  Especially the loudest one - I think it's Ms Nations?  This isn't gold.  It's tin foil!  These are Ferrero Rocher wrappers.  Look, the little stickers are still attached to some of them."

 "We're not rich?!  How am I going to convince Jill to marry me now?!"

 "We may not be rich, but at least we won't have to eat the rest of that mud yogurt to prevent outselves from starving to death.  Get up that beanstalk and bring us some Ferrero Rocher for breakfast!"

After much grumbling and complaining, Jack involuntarily found himself climbing the beanstalk.

 "That wasn't as far up as I thought!  Thank heavens for Devon's low-hanging cloud!  Oh, everything's so big up here!  I think those stories about a giant must be true!  Still, I'll be able to sneak around without being seen as there's so much stuff to hide under!  The Rocher wrappers lead towar-   Gasp!  Look at all that gold!!!" 

 "Fee Fi Fo Fum!  I smell the blood of an English...  woman??"

 "No, silly!  I'm a man!  I'm just fine boned and on the petite side!"

 "What?!"

 "I mean:  Eeeeeeeeek!"

 "Be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread!  Or something less gruesome..." 

 "Oh, no!  The giant!  Where is he?!  I can't really tell what with all this gold glinting and gleaming all over the place!"

"HE'S BEHIND YOU!"

 "What?!  Oh, no!  Aaaaaiiieeeeee!!!"

 "Who are you?!  You're not Jack."

 "Oh, yes I am!"

 "Oh, no you're not!"

 "Oh, yes I am!!"

 "Oh, no you're not!  My Jack has a bow tie, and a beard, and expressive eyebrows."

 "I'll thank you not to mention my eyebrows!  They've almost grown back now, anyway!"

 "Fine.  But my Jack is going to climb my beanstalk and live in a box that I've turned into human-sized house here in the castle, and we'll live happily ever after!"

 "But I am Jack, and I did climb your beanstalk!  I'm not sure how I feel about the happily ever after with you bit, though?!  Oh, and actually, it's a 'co-beanstalk'!  Well, that's what Witch Greenfingers told me anyway!"

 "Witch Greenfingers?  Co-beanstalk?  Oh!  Cobaea stalk!  I might have known.  This smacks of Fairy Twinkletits' machinations...  I bet she's manipulated things to get you up here and distract me while she gets Jack-In-My-Box to herself."

 "Wot?!  I mean, what?!  I mean, pardon?!"

 "Very Mistress!  Wake up!  Someone's trying to steal my Jack!  Oh, and I caught someone trying to steal our gold, too."

Yaaawwwwn

 "Aaaaaiiiieeeeeee!!!  What the hells is that?!  An Alien?!?!"

 "An Alien?  Don't be ridiculous.  This is Fetchsleep, a spider, and the castle's Very Mistress."

 "Mnuhfgrmmpf...  Wassgoinon?  What time is it?"

 "Um, later than it feels?  Anyway, Fairy Twinkletits is trying to steal my Jack, and I caught someone trying to steal our gold."

 "Well, I'd let them take it.  This place is a complete pigsty - albeit the most gilded and tasteless sty I've ever seen - This is a good opportunity to have a clear out and get rid of some of this junk."

 "We can't let him get away with it so easily, though.  I have an idea..."

Und so it was that Jack found himself before a conveyer belt, upon which various golden artifacts - most of them prizes from Richard Osman's House of Games Champion of Champions Week that the giant had scored on Flea-Bay and at car-boot sales - trundled by.  The agreement was that he could take all those things that he could remember after the final item had passed by.  Unfortunately, he had the Audience to help him...

"THE GOLD WATCH!""THE GOLDEN DARTBOARD!""THE GOLD TIE!"

"THE GOLDEN BREADBIN!""THE GOLD RUSSIAN DOLLS!""A CUDDLY TOY!""A GOLD TOOLBOX!"

"THE GOLDEN LUGGAGE!""A MAGNUM OF CHAMPAGNE!""Did I win yet?""GOLDEN EGGCUPS!"

"A GOLDEN TEAPOT!""THE GOLD FONDUE SET!""GOLDEN GOBLETS!"

 

 "Oh, stop!  STOP!!  I can't concentrate with all that shouting!  I can barely remember anything!  Golden eggcups?!  Ferrero Rocher!  A loo brush?!  The cuddly toy!  A decanter?!  Ooh!  Was there a golden coolbag?!"

 "You can take your haul of of golden tat - well, whatever you can carry, anyway.  What else did you end up with, in the end?"

 "Um, the goblets and Russian dolls, the breadbin, the bathroom set, and loads of Ferrero Rocher!  The only big prize I could remember was the coolbag.  Mum's going to be livid that I didn't get the luggage and fondue set!"

 "Is that all?  Honestly, take some more - whatever you can carry out of here."

 "Oh, I also grabbed these golden bell-trimmed green velour shorts!"

 "Ack!  They've been here all this time?!?  Get them out!  Get them out!!  Um...  I mean: I didn't realise we still had those old things.  By all means take them."

As Jack neared the base of the Cobaeanstalk, little gold bells jingling against his thighs, Jack's mother (who was waiting for Jack), the Baron (who had come for the rent), Jill (who'd come for Jack - or for anyone, really), Dobbin (who had escaped from Witch Greenfingers), Witch Greenfingers (who'd chased after Dobbin), and - eventually - a fairy godmother (who seemed rather flustered), clashed outside the Dame's hovel...

The Cast (looking a little worse for wear)

 "But I haven't got the money!  Jack's not come back down the co-beanstalk yet with armfuls of gold.  Or, at the very least, Ferrero Rocher."

 "Look, I haven't got any money either.  I've just come for the rent so I can afford the basic necessities like wine, keeping my swimming pool clean, and fresh orchids about the place."

 "Oh, bleeding me dry for 'necessities'?!  Well, don't think your trollop of a daughter is getting her hands on my Jack, then!"

 "Trollop?!  How dare you!  I'll have you know that I'm a grade eight qualified strumpet!"

 "Calm down, ladies.  This is a difficult time - and we've all been drinking."

 "Drinking?  Some of us can't afford to drink!  Besides, it's half past ten in the morning!"

 "Oh, well, um... I'm ten hours ahead of you, don't forget."

 "Mööööh!"

 "Ah, there you are Dobbin.  This isn't your home anymore and, quite frankly, judging by this lot I would have thought you'd be happy to escape?"

 

Glingle  Glingle

* P I F F *

 "Sorry I'm late y'all.  What have I missed?"

 "Practically everything!"

 "Oh.  Well, it's been a very busy time in Lalaland.  Where's Jack?"

 

Jingle  Jingle 

 "Oof!  Here I am!  And look: I've brought enough gold for everyone!  Although we might have to split up the bathroom set..."

 

The End

(because if I don't end it here there will be a Part 3

And no one wants that inflicted upon them!)

Except... Not far away, after a morning lounging in the pool on an inflatable plesiosaur, the other Jack had just dressed and put on his bow tie when his skin prickled: he was having the ominous sensation of being watched...

 "Brrr... It feels like I'm being watched.  I wonder who-"

HE'S BEHIND YOU!

"Gulp!"

~O~

 

Cast of Characters

(in order of appearance)

Narrator (Part 1) ~ The Very Mistress

Jack ~ Ms Scarlet

The Dame ~ Jon

Jill ~ Mitzi

The Baron ~ Dinah

Lackey ~ Carmen

Dobbin the Cow (front half) ~ Mago

Dobbin the Cow (back half) ~ Hound

"Mööööh" (post-production voice of Dobbin) ~ LẌ

Fairy Twinkletits ~ Mistress Maddie

Witch Greenfingers ~ Madam Arcati

Narrator (Part 2) ~ Mago

Giant ~ IDV

Fetchsleep ~ The Very Mistress

Golden Harp ~ C3-Peenee

Tinfoil Goose ~ Norma-D2

Fairy LaLaLand ~ Savvy

Jack-In-My-Box ~ Asriel

The Audience

(an array of Americans)

Ms Nations (the ringleader and loudest)

Rimpy

Melanie

Mr Tonking

Cookie

 

~O~

 

Happy Holidays!

 

 

::

 

 Oh, before we forget, a box of mushy tomatoes has been provided by an anonymous patron should you wish to copy-and-paste your displeasure in the comments:

\🍅🍅🍅/   Just pick and throw:  = = =🍅[splat].

  \🍅 🍅/